In the horticultural industry, purveyors of plant starts are constantly seeking ways to improve the efficiency and productivity of propagation, manufacturing, and distribution techniques. One known method of packaging plant starts is used by Ellegaard A/S of Denmark, and described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,011,778, which is incorporated herein by reference. The method includes encasing plant propagation media, e.g., soil, within a degradable cellulose fabric sleeve with a machine. The combined sleeve and propagation media units, e.g., growth substrate blocks or Ellepots™, are individually manufactured and loaded into respective receptacles formed in a substrate tray. Once loaded into the trays; plant starts, such as seeds, seedlings, and vegetative plants, are planted in the units and the unit-bearing trays are distributed to buyers or growers. The units are then removed from the trays and transplanted by the buyers in desired locations for desired horticultural purposes.
According to some conventional methods, substrates produced by substrate-making machines are manually loaded into substrate trays. These methods typically require multiple workers as substrates can be produced by substrate-making machines at high rates. For example, one known pot-producing machine, the Ellegaard H 101 machine, produces substrates at a rate of about 2.4 substrates per second. Accordingly, several conventional automated machines were devised in an attempt to reduce manually labor and increase efficiency. While providing certain of these advantages, many of these machines lacked versatility and were expensive, bulky, and functionally limited.
Further, in order to improve efficiency, many substrate-making machines, such as the Ellegaard H 101, are configured to produce substrates two at a time. Therefore, the substrate pairs must be separated prior to being loaded into substrate trays. Many conventional automated substrate loaders lack the ability to perform such a separation.